‘Fractured’ learning spaces: the impact of "damaged" working class learner identities on attainment.

This paper employ’s Lefebvre’s ‘A Production of Space’ (1991) and Reay’s ‘Miseducation’ (2017) to examine educational experiences of working-class students in HE. For students who possess damaged learner identities (Reay, 2017) when they enter university, control of the abstract, semi-public, semi-private (Lefebvre, 1991) space where knowledge is produced is where the ‘othering’ of working-class values, knowledge and experience takes place. Persistent narratives of education as a means of ‘escape’ have far reaching emotional and psychological effects and contribute to attainment issues. This paper explores what steps can be taken to challenge this and provide more inclusive spaces of knowledge production.